Henry Mayfield Elementary School's debut near Slidell delayed again

Delayed for at least a third time, the opening of Henry Mayfield Elementary School near Slidell appears to be on track for "around Mardi Gras," according to St. Tammany Parish school system administrators. Originally scheduled to be completed in June and open in August, the school is under construction by Polk Construction Corp. of Waveland, Miss. The new school aims to alleviate crowding at Bayou Woods Elementary and Carolyn Park Middle.

View full sizeEllis Lucia, The Times-Picayune archiveConstruction of Mayfield Elementary School near Slidell was photographed in February.

Mayfield, home to pre-K through fifth grade and expanding to sixth grade in 2012-13, will take about 540 students to its new facility. As of now, there are more than 1,300 students going to school on the two campuses, which sit next to each other on Liberty Drive.

"I am very glad this time that I think we can see the forest through the trees," Assistant Superintendent of Administration Bill Brady told the School Board. "(The school system) is moving the contractor along to begin for him to apply for the process of getting the initial stages of the inspections done so we can get occupancy. We cannot move into the building or really do anything until that process is complete."

Polk has received extensions for the $18.6 million project on 13 occasions from July 2010 to November 2011, according to the School Board's construction status report. Previously, administrators said Polk can be penalized up to $1,500 for each day they're late, which could add up to more than $250,000.

In May, Brady didn't "see any hope" Mayfield would open in August, and the school system started working on a Plan B, while predicting an October opening. A couple of months later, the delay changed their best-case scenario to December or after just the Christmas break.

The project status report for Dec. 14 said finishing work was under way, and last week Brady stated, "We're fairly confident as well as we can be betting on this particular contractor, that we will be in a position to move in hopefully around Mardi Gras.

"We're pressing for that. ... I want to caution everyone that I'm optimistic, but I'm not 100 percent where I should be. We are really a lot closer than we were a while back."